Last week on training night, the tail feathers on my Alpha 40 started to get wiggly. I had originally assembled it per the manual, with just the screws and wing nuts. During the week, I took it apart and epoxied the vertical stab onto the horizontal with tri-stock braces, and the horizontal stab to the top of the fuselage. I figured it was now pretty solid.

Last night at training night, I took off on my second flight with my instructor (my first was very short and ended with a broken prop), and one of the spectators shouted for us to land. The whole tail was wiggling badly. I managed to land it myself, and found that the top portion of the fuselage, where I had epoxied the stabilizer, had come loose from the sides of the fuselage. This the result of a weak or non-existent glue joint in the rear of the fuse.

I peeled away enough adjacent covering to get a good grip, and put it all back together with 5 minute epoxy at the field, adding tri-stock below the horizontal stab for extra strength.

I figured that with all of this messing around, the night would not be very productive for training, but after getting the plane back into the air and landing a couple of times, my instructor switched TX's with me while in the air, pulled out the buddy cord, and walked away. I did two more takeoffs and landings on my own and got a round of applause from the peanut gallery.

It turned out to be a great night, and I only burned 3/4 of a tank of fuel in two hours, but I did manage to solo.

yeah same happen on my 40 too. i just cut the cover back sanded all the edges with 180 and glued and locktighted it all down. it it's fine now.
but good to hear you flyin on your own its a great feeling

Congratulations on flying solo! Sorry to hear that your Alpha .40 has been such a project, they normally have such a good reputation that you wouldn't expect your trainer to be shaking itself apart and suffering from glueless joints.

Congrads!